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 Originally Posted by Penneywize
I will, however, quickly get a point in on reproduction / overpopulation, etc:
Point form, because it took me 30 mins to write that last post:
- Those of us living in highly industrialized societies face an impending, possibly unavoidable problem in the next 30-40 years: an aging population.
- Overpopulation is a problem in underdeveloped / developing nations primarily. All credible population models show that as economies modernize, birth rates slow down and eventually decrease. This suggests that economic development should be the focus of any efforts to curb overpopulation (this says nothing of the other quality-of-life improvements that would come along with it).
- If those of us living in 1st world nations decided to "do their part" to "stop the overpopulation of earth" by not having children of our own, we'd only be exacerbating the issue our own countries face, and ultimately do nothing to help the world as a whole. We need to have more children. We can't help developing nations if our own countries have populations with median ages of 50+ (going to happen by 2050 in Canada, maybe a little later in the United States, probably earlier in many European countreis) and over 1/3rd over the retirement age. We'd be incredibly unproductive and face the enormous social security costs / taxes that would be necessary to care for our elderly.
In other words, we'd be fucked, and have no means to extend a helping hand to the countries that need it most.
While you're right about economies have enormous internal problems due to aging demographics, I'm not sure if this isn't simply the "lesser of two evils" (even though I hate that phrase)
I think the kinds and levels of corrections we will experience are unpredictable, and that you're basically right. But that doesn't mean that corrections won't come and undo a lot of it. If I were the man in charge, I think my approach would be your approach, regardless
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